Pathways Converge

Pathways Converge

(“Don’t withhold good from someone who deserves it, when it is in your power to do so.” Proverbs 3:27)

Help me learn the language, help me
hear the sounds that mean another soul
could be seen if only I opened my eyes.
One song fades as another one begins,
pathways converge and we are brought together again.
I know you never liked what he did,
you know he wished he never had.
He knows every shattered choice he hoped
would fadeout like the ending of a radio song.
He felt like he was stuck in adolescence,
like he was still trying out for the football team.
He would paint his eyes a different color if
only that would change his view of things.

Help me discover the buried treasure, help me
correct the judgments that make me close my hands tight.
I have done worse, I think, than he thinks he has done.
I would buy him dinner, I would share a drink with him.
I would convince him nothing he did would prevent
me from being his friend.
I would not publish a single sentence he said.
I’d give him my heart as a receptacle for him
to place every shivering thought. I’d ask the
only questions that matter, questions of hope and
none of the statements that would shatter the
aging walls of his tears.

Help me learn his language, help me listen,
help me give what I’ve been given. Help me
receive his fearful confidence. Help me see it
through his eyes.

Maybe God Is a Wedding Singer

Maybe God Is a Wedding Singer

(“And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It was prepared like a bride dressed for her husband.” Revelation 21:2)

Maybe God is a wedding singer
with down-turned lips that remind you
of Elvis.

Maybe God is a caller for square-dancers
learning their steps weekly on
Tuesday evenings.

Maybe God is a redheaded child
wearing her jeans with rips in the knees,
looking like a spinning top in the rain.

Maybe God is a swarm of bees
looking to hive and
start up with nectar and golden honey.

Maybe God has been here from the middle
working out to the edges of our
limited imaginations.

Maybe God is sitting next to the toddler
taking his first turn on the swings
in the park.

Maybe God is in the shadows while
I sit like a dog
in the sun.

Maybe God is in the light while I
walk in the shade of
cedars and firs.

Maybe God is in a
lover’s first kiss or
in an elder’s last sigh.
Maybe God doesn’t think about this,
Maybe God couldn’t care why.

Maybe you’ll call me mad,
maybe a heretic,
surely I can stand under the protection
of all the kneeling I’ve inherited.

Maybe God is a welder
sealing joints that are broken.
Maybe God is a dozen words
that sound from the songs deep in the canyon,
the lyrics silent and unspoken.

Maybe God is a waltz,
maybe a grass dance,
maybe God ignores our faults,
maybe a second chance.

Maybe I’m talking out of turn,
maybe I read too much,
maybe you don’t understand yet
that this is poetry and maybe
God is the eternal rhyme that teaches
lions and lambs to play together.

Atop the Ancient Peaks

 Atop the Ancient Peaks

(“My command from God was to bless these people, and there's nothing I can do to change what he has done.” Numbers 23:20)

Stand atop the ancient peaks,
turn your eyes toward the borderline.
What do you see, what do you know,
what do you give to all of those on the other side?
Did you find a better place;
do you live where no terror can touch you?
Then hand it down from the mountain,
send the safety you have boasted of,
find the few who speak your language
and invite them higher to sit with you.

Take their stories deep within,
hear their ballads of uncertainty.
Add their name to your banners,
fly their flag along with your own.
Find the beat of their drums inside
your own pulse. Take the steep path
down along the cliffs and meet them
at the end of the road.

Tear down the fences,
obliterate the walls.
Speak their language, I know they will teach you.
Your day starts at quarter to nine
and theirs a half hour before. You have the time
to share the daylight,
you have the rhymes that connect families
to the windy faucets of your excursion;
you have accomplished more than you expected,
and you have more to offer than your shambled objections.

Sit across from their newly camped grounds,
stoke the fires that keep us warm. Lead them to
the place
you created, the safety of your offering.
They are fathers and brothers, daughters and mothers,
they thirst for protection too.
Be the blessing they already own,
be accountable for their welfare and well-being.

Jokers see nothing past their own noses,
thieves see everything they do not own.

But you can see, if you scan the horizon,
more and more dialects you need to learn.
Open the gate and let the floods wash their
crinkling skin, offer the food you prepared for
undiscovered orphans. Take their hands and
learn their pulse that palpitates the same as your own.

Torrents of Rain

Torrents of Rain

(“O Lord, restore our well-being, just as the streams in the arid south are replenished.” Psalm 126:3)

Don’t let the fantasy of uneasy paragraphs
persuade you that the everything is glued,
everything is static,
everything is anti-motion. The stars are
moving away from us a trillion miles away.

Don’t let the certainty of ambiguity convince you
the rains are gone. Don’t let the clouds on the horizon
obscure the coming day. Lighter than the mountains,
denser that the sun,
invited by petition,
stretched like the ocean’s horizon,
hold the hope that yesterday’s promises bring.

The fog burned off quicker than I guessed,
the light, though slanted late summer,
reached my porch before the evening fell.
We examined every exposed corner where
the light bent to reveal life hidden behind the
outcroppings of doubt.

The wadis were waiting, the dried riverbed
asleep and dry. The pilgrims plod the
unkempt desert floor; the preachers are not
certain, though they have set a new date for
the end of the world. Do they every stop their
silly prophecies once the storms do not gather
like the have pontificated? Do they admit the harm
their proclamations have done?

There is a rainy season; there is a time when
water will fill the desert again. It does not come
from ego-saturation, it does not arrive because
someone painted sign with the exact date and time.
You can no more command the rain than you can
tie the wind with a half-hitch, tethering it to the mountains.

There is a season for ease; there is a gracious month
when the Spirit will fill the waiting again. She comes
when least expected; she fills the imagination; she washes
the religious dust away. You can no more command the
Spirit than you can turn the earth with your hands.

As a matter of fact, there is far more water to quench
your soul
than all the suns in the universe. Watch the desert
late evening silhouette. Let the peace that pursues the
thirsty make an oasis of your tear-dried tongues. No need
to ration anything. It is time to share the overflow
that comes from the joyous music of torrents of rain
we thought would never arrive.

Turn To Me with Your Constant Love

Turn To Me with Your Constant Love

(“Because your love is constant, hear me, O Lord; show your mercy, and preserve my life!” Psalm 119:149)

You might be surprised to hear me telling
all my truth. You might think less of me,
you might look with disgust,
as I let flow the maladjustments that have followed me
from my youth.
I tell half with honesty, half with hope.
I write with symbols, I read with stops where I should
continue until the entire story is told.
Addicts never love brutal honesty;
the best of us don’t want to hurt those we love;
the rest of us quake at our reputation being more of a
government announcement that the check is in the mail.
For now, perhaps until evening, my eyes are undry,
there is a tremor in my hands, my voice chokes, and
I maintain constant vigilance that makes me feel like everything
I’ve said and done was just a cruel hoax.

I do two loads of laundry a week, and some of my jeans
are now torn at the seams. I could wear them to do yard work,
if I did yard work,
but I have nothing to wear to do the hard work of winning back
the man I thought I could become too many decades ago.

It would be easy if, just writing carelessly now, each transgression
was forgotten forever. But we are not made that way, are we?
The memory circuits stay active, the trauma rarely expressed.
I should have sought professional help, I should have gone
to the wilderness with one ear or two who would hear my
truth in its entirety. That is no one’s fault. I make no excuses.
But words I read creep beyond the fences I’ve built to keep
me from seeing the judgement in the eyes of someone who might
become my enemy. I’ve lived, every epoch of my life,
with this systemic aberration. There is no one to blame
but myself. And I know that loathing is the last thing my
lonely soul needs.

I’m looking for the one friend who I can spend afternoons with
telling my ancient stories and truth. Someone I have not hurt so far,
someone, some day with hooks in their soul just like mine.

Turn to me with your constant love,
let me confess the failings that still come
fast-mailed from the past. I have lost the trust
I once had. I am tired of being a hermit, tired of recusing
myself like a hobbit in a cave. Meet me for drinks
and we’ll see how the conversation goes.

The Day Was a Blank Canvas

The Day Was a Blank Canvas

(“I’ve become like a bottle dried up by smoke, though I haven’t forgotten your statutes.” Psalm 119:83)

Waiting for the signs to appear, I
walk through the fire only to find
the embers have been smoking half the day long.
The air stood still waiting for the next
storm battering the coast. They stack up,
one after the other, like a traffic jam out of the city.
The day was a blank canvas waiting to be painted.
The day was a break between breaths that we took for granted.

Waiting for the highlighted songs, I
listen through the heavy air only to hear
the consonants sounding like your name.
The wind reversed course as the day played on.
The strings were legato, the woodwinds were
swing, the brass was reflecting the unwritten
measures like the first time they were learned.

The fog wrapped the river like an afternoon nap
on this fawned early autumn day. The sap
is slowing as the days wane.

I know your words, I know your brow
that’s knit at the unlikeliest sounds. I know
trauma hangs like a leaden thought balloon.
Last year’s winter was harsh. Last year
an asterisk
held the place for comments at the bottom
of the page. I know your words. I know how
silently the sage and smoke change the tune
at least for a day.

Coffee, Apologies, and Shalom

Coffee, Apologies, and Shalom

(“Rest once more, my soul, for the Lord has vindicated you.” Psalm 116:7)

Pressed inside the corner, kneeling beneath the latch,
his heart ran faster than his frightened thoughts.
He was all alone and that is what he feared;
no one’s eyes for reassurance, no one’s ears to hear his pain.
He did not live on an island, but if felt that way.
He inhaled the foggy air and felt the drizzling mist
slowly wetting his t-shirt and jeans.
He would not need to change them, the air would
dry them on his lengthy stroll. He was walking,
cross-country,
home.

But even there the solitary day cinched his throat,
made his chest feel heavy, his feet weighted with lead.
Do you know how long it takes for
scars to heal while you sit alone waiting for the
ideas to form. He fancied himself an artist,
a sculptor of words. But the pages, always emptied,
demanded he scrape the edges of his soul with a
spatula to find just enough words to share it halfway with you.

Let’s go find him, I’m sure he is home.
Let’s bring him coffee, apologies and shalom.
Let’s sing his words back to him, let’s play
the music his soul absorbs.
Let’s get out his old records, I think he’ll
like the swing bands or some funk.
Let’s let ourselves in before he invites us,
let’s leave only after the last song is played.

He sat in the corner, his favorite recliner,
and slowly allowed the light to coax his verses.
He had always feared unannounced visits,
and was stuck for words. But this time he
was ready,
and he could not put his finger on why;
but this time he was open,
and he laughed in dotted lines across the room.
He laughed because ancient times are not nearly as old
as he assumed.

Dog-Eared Invitations

Dog-Eared Invitations

(“The Lord remembers us and will bless us.” Psalm 115:12a)

Look inside the rain, let it remind you of faces
that you used to see, faces you know were good
for a kiss or a laugh and usually both.
I know you would prefer that the
thread reached back 50 years unbroken.
Instead the spool unraveled five or ten years
at a time.

You can take to the road to find them,
you can send a letter describing how they
showed up in your dreams.
You can call and hope their voice sounds the same,
you can count up the words lost over the
stretches of highway from desert to home.

The road narrows but rarely answers the
questions we’ve never asked. I’d travel the
world with you,
I’d scrape the sand off your face. I’d help
you find the faces you left behind,
I’d deliver invitations to everyone who has
forgotten your name.

Do you feel unseen? Do you tell yourself stories
of what might have been? Does the rain keep you
from going outside; does it mock your hope for
freedom’s ring?

Listen beyond the trail that has led you here.
Let the wind carry the voices from the past.
I know you ache for forgotten friends; I know you
would never forsake even the one who cannot
remember your name.

Let’s start the journey by faith;
let’s empty our baskets and create a
new recipe for road trips. A day, a week,
a reverie, a sleep, a month, a cross-country
race to the end where we cash in our
dog-eared invitations to dance around
the bonfires again.

Tired of Wandering

Tired of Wandering

(Some of the redeemed had wandered into the desert, into the wasteland. They couldn’t find their way to a city or town.” Psalm 107:4)

I’ve walked this pathway so well it
opens to me like the gates to a castle I’ve never visited.
Glassy in the fog,
messy while I slog through the day like mud.
So afraid of wasting my time,
so afraid of running out of time,
I still walk my appointed route without deviation.
I have no excess, no minutes to spare.
I have no travel, no destination. I walk the
circle
hoping someone new will stop me,
will hold me with their attention,
will have every intention of helping me fly
between vague intentions and dreams
of people I thought would walk the road
with me
like we did ages ago. Do you remember
the way the snow fell in late November on
the Pennsylvania slopes? We ate hamburgers
and imagined reserved seating for all of our future friends.
I never imagined I would lose the seat
at your table soon.
But the song rolled in like a wagon wheel
crossing the jagged field where the hay bales stood.

Seems the music makes the hours pass more quickly
these days. I just miss the friends who listened to
it with me so many miles ago. So little time left
to
recreate days in the park, nights on the stage,
listening to crickets in the dark, hiding our age.
Would you, by happenstance, be going my way?
Let’s try singing again and guess at the lyrics for
the verses we’ve forgotten.
I’m tired of wandering, tired of missing the unencrypted
poetry we once shared. Read me yours, I’ll read you mine,
and we’ll sit on Persian carpets frayed from the sun.

The Native Tongue

The Native Tongue

(“If God calls something permissible and clean, you must not call it forbidden and dirty!” Acts 10:15)

Scratched beneath the surface of that papyrus
were more ink stains than suspected. Did they
exist before the words were recorded;
did the mean anything for us?

Smoky air imitated fog all morning,
wildfires blazed a dozen miles from here.
Breathing was not optional,
and outside the soot settled on late summer
windshields.

Cantilevered like bridge-work, the tiny sentences
were sandwiched between famously old and
nouveau linguistics. For the life of me
I could not decipher the language.

I think it was Vietnamese. The ladies in the
salon
mentioned my name with ease. I appreciated the
English.
But they natively conversed with each other;
they did not interpret their private conversation.
I saw a patron, red in the face,
whisper that they should have learned our national tongue.
I did not know we had one.

I wonder what language they spoke on this continent
two millennia ago. I wonder who patrolled the streets
listening for unconscious violations of the law.
We lack what we offer, and we offer so very little,
we wonder why they aren’t just like us. We wait
for a conversation we can understand, and, until then,
demand our words become the native tongue.

But the aboriginal conversation only shows us the
mirror, our bespoke reflection underneath the moon.
Take a moment, erase the lines, substitute the commas
with a breath to fill the space. We are not so
different, our languages merely vibrations pushing air.
We live in the fusion of traditions we have forgotten,
the motion of the waves
takes us toward the shore; the patter of
childlike chatter can elicit a smile again.

Now That the Burden is Gone

Now That the Burden is Gone

(“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our wrongdoings from us.” Psalm 103:12)

Did you see the dizzy way the day
turned like a clown? Did you pick up the
gravel that had been spread around your feet?
Which hour cost you the most?
Which stroke of the pen made all the difference?

The air is purer where the breeze has blown
every accusation further down the slopes. The
lights are brighter, full spectrum and sun, where
the tears are wiped from your cheeks. The
sounds turn from sullen bellows to the laughter
of a playground full of children.

Did you walk past the place where it first happened?
Did you fight the memories where they discarded their
own fears on your spine?
Did you sit in the backyard where they found what
they called evidence of your crime?
Did you take the time, today, straightway, and become
underwhelmed by the inherent insanity of it all?

The past is lighter where the breath of God has
whispered the pointed fingers back to their holsters? The
day breaks more softly, the angles are less oblique, and
the glass more transparent where one word is the word.
The distances from one sin to another are measured in
light-years. And your soul, like a beast of burden,
is happier now that the burden is gone.

A Change of Clothes

A Change of Clothes

(“In the same way, the victor will be dressed in white clothes, and I will never erase his name from the book of life but will acknowledge his name before My Father and before His angels.” Revelation 3:5)

On second thought, maybe it would be better to
light a fire than sit outside in the cold. Maybe it
would be advisable to invite the blazing glow back
to the front row of the evening.

We could sit around the table swapping stories
like baseball cards,
and rolling our tales out like dice. We could
evaluate their veracity. We could measure their
capacity for the truth. Or we could,
one
more time,
trust our friends who understand the rhythm
of winning and losing, of joy and pain. We wouldn’t
mind that much that we heard those lines a dozen
times before. They do not lose their truth even
with the embellishments each time they are told.

Is this what it will be like, to be known and
warmed by that knowing? Will our stories flow more
freely? Will our questions hang in the air without immediate
criticism? Will the systems of religion and politics fall under
the weight of the unadorned truth? Will answers matter less
than honest doors left open for perusal? Will we hear
the varied interpretations and anoint all of them true?
Is this what it will be like, to be seen and heard beyond
our talent for song and fashion? Will we create more space
between us even though we have grown so close?
Will the summers last forever; will our tales dangle in the
sky?

On second thought, I’ll light the fire and invite you to
warm yourself late into our waning life. The body gives
out over time, but the mind, oh my friend, the mind
never stops believing in eternity.

A change of clothes would really do us good.